You know, being in the closet was an experience that was painful and terrible and no good but I don't think it's particularly unique. "Being in the closet" as a gay person is just another way of saying "living a lie," and the particular lie can be anything, not just sexual orientation. I keep re-learning this lesson over and over.
For instance, staying in a relationship you know is not for you, but trying to put a cheerful face on it and hope it gets better is one way of being in the closet. As is staying in a religious community and pretending belief when you really don't believe in the religion anymore. Basically, any time I've pretended to be something I'm not for any reason I've rationalized for myself has been a time of profound depression and unnecessary suffering. It's a heavy burden to live a lie and I think we should try to do that as little as possible. Indeed, any time I've decided to step out of any of these closets (ignoring for now that it was usually just to step into the closet across the hall), it's been with the relief of a weight lifted. I don't wish living a lie to anyone, least of all myself.
It's hard though, sometimes you're lying to yourself in the closet just as much as you're lying to everyone else. It took me years to admit to myself that I probably wanted to kiss on dudes, let alone actually try and meet guys. Like there's basically three phases to life in the closet: denial (lying to everyone and yourself), coming to terms (admitting to yourself the truth of the matter and chewing on it a bit, while maintaining the fiction to everyone else), and finally revelation, where you feel safe enough to live your truth openly. Stage 1 is a misery, and that misery seeps out in myriad ways. I recommend it to no one. Stage 2, is better. It can be deeply uncomfortable to consciously pretend to be someone you're not, and indeed that discomfort is largely going to be the motivation for moving to stage 3, but depending on the situation, it may be preferably in terms of physical safety or security to stay in stage 2. Which is to say, sometimes you are ready to share your truth but the world is not ready to hear it. Stage 3 is, in my admittedly privileged experience, liberation. I recommend it to everyone who can possibly do it.
As some armchair omphaloskepsis, I was thinking today that maybe we go through these stages en masse sometimes. Like for a long time we were collectively in stage 1 about how the world was going. Things are fine, capitalism doesn't produce too much suffering, cops and politicians only abuse their power in movies, everything is fine, nothing to see here, please don't rock the boat. But with the emergence of the internet, there's just been a lot more visibility to the horrors of the world we've built, because we're all comparing notes and discovering some of these miseries are not, in fact, outliers that don't challenge the story of who we are, but staggeringly common miseries that, in fact, challenge fundamental assumptions of the story we tell ourselves about how the world is. Just like there was only so many times I could get a little flushed when meeting a hot guy before I had to admit "purely heterosexual" was maybe not the most accurate assessment of my sexual identity, there's only so many times that the news of the day can make us sick to our stomachs before we start to think, "you know, maybe we aren't who we think we are and it's time to re-evaluate and try new things."
Some people respond to this new knowledge by doubling down on the lying to themselves and others, doing metaphysical contortions to assure themselves and others that bombing weddings is okay and necessary, and killing unarmed kids is okay and necessary and the financial class stealing everyone's pensions is just a necessary end in capitalism and nobody needs to be punished and everything can just stay the same. This is misery. On some animal level we always recognize cruelty and misery when we see it, and lying about it ourselves and others is a good way to become a very unhappy person. It is misery upon misery.
Some people are tired of lying to themselves about it, but have no new story to tell the world yet. So the world is misery, but what can I as a single person do to change an entire system? Probably nothing! So we kind of sit with this new knowledge of the sorrows of the civilization we've built, but having no real clear alternative, and not wanting to find ourselves on the outskirts of our communities we continue to go along with the story of how things are, even though it's uncomfortable to live that lie. Because what else can we do? What's the point of coming out with the truth when everyone else isn't ready to hear it? When there are entire industries dedicated to undercutting the very idea of truth or "facts" or "science." What's the point of telling your truth when everyone on earth has been primed to respond, "yeah, but that's just your opinion man" whether that truth is your own sexual identity or scientific research that conflicts with someone's gut feeling about how the results should look?
This is stage 2, and it is still kind of a misery, but it's also a relief. Everyone knows what it feels like to wake up, and waking up is not a decision, it's just the moment when you finally realize you are conscious.
I think it's stage 3 we live in fear of, bringing the truth out into the light and dealing with it directly. There's such a thing as too much truth too fast. I think stage 3, if we ever get there, could look really ugly or really beautiful or maybe a big messy mixture of both. Dealing forthrightly with the misery of the world could result in a whole heap of new miseries, as decades of pent-up rage and pain get meted out on each other in some kind of bloody revolution. If the truth is that the authorities HAVE been abusing their power and having been committing terrible acts without any sort of oversight or accountability, if we all agreed that was true, there's the scary moment where we decide how we're going to hold them to account. Do we haul out the guillotines or throw them out of office or simply run them out of public life? Will we be thinking rationally in that moment, and abiding by deep-seated beliefs about who we are and how we like to treat people or will the bottled pressure be too much for sanity and lead to a cathartic bout of terrible behavior on our own part?
This is the fear of stage 2. That telling our truths will just be too much. That it will spark violence, that it will destroy and hurt more than it helps. And that's true, telling your truth can cause more pain than the status quo ever did. There are many truths you could tell your ex during a break-up that only hurt everyone involved. But there is a way to tell at least some of those truths that maintains the dignity and humanity of both parties. And, as you might have noticed, maintaining the dignity and humanity of one's opponents is not something high on anyone's priority list these days.
But we could tell the truth. We could be firm but kind. We could talk about it. We could listen. We could recognize and respect our common humanity even in the face of difficult truths. We could see ourselves in the other. And it would be great.
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Winter is Cold, children
There’s a certain subset of kids movies that seem to be run by deranged adults who want to make children weep as often as they possibly can. Like, there’s just some people who think it’s vitally important to remind every child every week that their beloved pet or parent or friend is going to die much sooner than they think. So it’s an hour and a half of a lovable dog hero, followed by it’s untimely demise, pause for weeping, then yay, puppies!
Like, the occasional “mortality is coming children, and you are hopelessly naive” kind of ending is probably okay, but there’s just an astonishing amount of creative adults who think they need to be the Avatar of Sorrow to unsuspecting children.
I don’t get it. I mean for adults, yeah, the winter is cold, life is brutal, people are jerks, etc. so of COURSE adult fiction is a dystopian tragedy. But man, there’s no need to pre-emptively embitter children like they’re a pair of jeans that needs to be artfully damaged because this is the fashion of the day. Time and the bitter, nihilistic society they will eventually be dropped into will do that just fine on it’s own, thank you very much.
Please don’t let any children read this.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Sorrow as Meditation
And now for something completely different.
I've been sobbing a lot recently, which seems somewhat appropriate for the end of a 4-ish year relationship that had long since passed it's expiration date. I don't need to talk about that here, but just mention it for context. I MAY have some things to say down the road about open relationships, among other things, but it's probably smarter not to burn my temporary personal distress into the internet forever. Of course, that's never stopped me before.
Where was I? Oh yes, in the middle of deep, gut-wrenching sobs on the floor of my shower. Or on my couch having just come home and unable to contain it any longer. It's very cathartic, necessary, helpful, etc. so please don't worry about that detail. I'm just being honest: I'm crying a lot right now as part of my process.
The interesting thing that's come up is the little golf announcer I've noticed narrating the session as it happens in the back of my mind. "Ah, stepping up to chest-wracking sob number 3 is existential dread. And next, deep personal self-doubt. Ah, the pang of loneliness, a frequent dessert to self-doubt, is waiting in the wings. And, I'm waiting for confirmation, yes that is the deep personal pain of putting up with a distressing situation far longer than you had to, almost as a form of self-punishment there warming up in the heaving cages." And so on.
It really strikes me as a situation not unlike a general transcendental mediation practice. Where the goal is to be still with right now and gently reminding the analytical mind to let go of the constant dialogue over and over and over. Not that it's not been important to understand why I'm ugly crying on my couch on a lovely Tuesday evening, but this is information is known, and requires no high-powered intellectual analysis to make sense of. It's knowledge that emerges spontaneously, given a little stillness and space to breathe. Old habits, old doubts, old sorrows (as old friends), as well as whatever fresh hell I've been putting myself through just kind of emerge fully known. It doesn't take a lot to understand them, just a bit of patience to acknowledge them and give them a bit of time on center stage, after too many hours/days/years of waiting in the wings. So this is an opportunity to hush the golf announcer further. Muted just far enough to hear if something important inadvertently escapes his stream of consciousness, but down far enough not to distract from the proceedings.
Maybe the purpose of such a dramatic physiological display is simply to create a moment to acknowledge what should no longer be ignored. Sometimes the inner puppy just has to howl and the much-praised intellect needs to just sit the fuck down and listen.
I've been sobbing a lot recently, which seems somewhat appropriate for the end of a 4-ish year relationship that had long since passed it's expiration date. I don't need to talk about that here, but just mention it for context. I MAY have some things to say down the road about open relationships, among other things, but it's probably smarter not to burn my temporary personal distress into the internet forever. Of course, that's never stopped me before.
Where was I? Oh yes, in the middle of deep, gut-wrenching sobs on the floor of my shower. Or on my couch having just come home and unable to contain it any longer. It's very cathartic, necessary, helpful, etc. so please don't worry about that detail. I'm just being honest: I'm crying a lot right now as part of my process.
The interesting thing that's come up is the little golf announcer I've noticed narrating the session as it happens in the back of my mind. "Ah, stepping up to chest-wracking sob number 3 is existential dread. And next, deep personal self-doubt. Ah, the pang of loneliness, a frequent dessert to self-doubt, is waiting in the wings. And, I'm waiting for confirmation, yes that is the deep personal pain of putting up with a distressing situation far longer than you had to, almost as a form of self-punishment there warming up in the heaving cages." And so on.
It really strikes me as a situation not unlike a general transcendental mediation practice. Where the goal is to be still with right now and gently reminding the analytical mind to let go of the constant dialogue over and over and over. Not that it's not been important to understand why I'm ugly crying on my couch on a lovely Tuesday evening, but this is information is known, and requires no high-powered intellectual analysis to make sense of. It's knowledge that emerges spontaneously, given a little stillness and space to breathe. Old habits, old doubts, old sorrows (as old friends), as well as whatever fresh hell I've been putting myself through just kind of emerge fully known. It doesn't take a lot to understand them, just a bit of patience to acknowledge them and give them a bit of time on center stage, after too many hours/days/years of waiting in the wings. So this is an opportunity to hush the golf announcer further. Muted just far enough to hear if something important inadvertently escapes his stream of consciousness, but down far enough not to distract from the proceedings.
Maybe the purpose of such a dramatic physiological display is simply to create a moment to acknowledge what should no longer be ignored. Sometimes the inner puppy just has to howl and the much-praised intellect needs to just sit the fuck down and listen.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
My Star Wars Hot Take
I know we're all drowning in it right now, so I hate to add to the dangerous outgassing of hot air going on all over the world right now over the Force Awakens, but we obviously talk about Star Wars a lot because it's important to us. For some it's the "badassness" of the characters. For some it's the richly realized world and the art direction. Increasingly, for me, I think it's the post-christian philosophical and religious structure that's hinted at in the soothing religious connotations that they don't dive too deeply into. And, just putting this out there, I think that's a big reason for it's enduring popularity in the rest of the world as well. Star Wars is the only philosophical framework we can all agree in the gap caused by the increasing failures of modern religion in kindness to the other. Partly because in Star Wars the philosophy is appealing, but it's shallow enough that there's not enough dogma to really fight over. Partly because it's something you can secretly like for it's philosophical appeal while pretending to like the badassness of it all. And finally, because it's a popular and well-known fictional philosophy seriously trying to pick up the important pieces Christianity keeps leaving on the ground in favor of deference to power and fear of change.
Speaking as a mildly bitter, very gay ex-christian who has lots of complaints with church culture these days, I think the anger partly comes from disappointment in Christianity's failure to defend some vitally important ideas that must stand in opposition to greed and power, because they're too focused on playing the persecution complex card over their right to discriminate against people they don't like for superficial reasons. Christianity has been a wildly transformative influence because it championed ideas that even today still feel like heresy: redemption, even for the worst of the worst, community for all, the transcendent power of relentless kindness and the pursuit of peace, even when violence and demonization are emotionally justified and cathartic. The more they drop the ball on a consistent pattern of behavior based on these core ideals (and probably a few I'm missing), the more people tend to dismiss them as more or less hypocritical and/or actively harmful to the communities they claim to love.
The thing is, and this has been my struggle since coming out of the closet and leaving my church structure, there has yet to be a transformative ideology that encompasses the strongest, most true and important aspects of christianity and then taken them a step further. And one thing I'm starting to realize is, even though we collectively eschew institutional ideological structure, I assume because we've been so damaged by the institutional failures of christianity and democracy, we cannot help but live by philosophies and ideologies. So if we're not choosing them consciously and carefully, ad-hoc structures will form to take their place, either based on our own unconscious needs, or as imposed by the opportunistic sith lords currently roaming the populace bellowing fear and promising security if we'll only give up a little more. For instance, we shouldn't bow to Mark Zuckerberg's idea that privacy is out-dated, simply because he has money and influence, and no compelling intellectual or philosophical credentials. But we DO, because we don't think enough about what ideas are important to us and whether they're worth defending. This is an assumption, but one borne out by how passively people agree to the constant creep of privacy violations by Facebook and Google and other interested parties. Put another way, if you're not living by your own principles then you're living by someone else's.
And it's not that atheism or some variation of atheism can't embody and champion all the ideals christianity is so happy to drop, or at least only offer to the comfortably similar, but so far, in my experience, it does the opposite. Not only does modern atheism seem to reject the church, but they seem disdainful of people that even ask the questions christianity tries to answer. Do you wonder if there's life after death? Well that's stupid, because there isn't. Do you even wish there was life after death? That's stupid, because you should be content with your total obliteration as a token of your commitment to realism. Do you wonder if there's a grander purpose to life on this planet than it appears? Well that's stupid because there's only the cold hard laws of the universe and so you have to make your own meaning, before your inevitable, meaningless annihilation, which you would embrace with no complicated emotions if you were as enlightened as THIS atheist. And so on. In too many situations, dogmatic and evangelical atheism offers little but nihilism in a fancy dress, which, I'm afraid offers little chance at a transformative cultural moment. Many of us step back from religion and say "well, I don't believe in invisible sky gods," but then have no compelling philosophical framework to latch onto that is well on it's way to subsuming and surpassing the institutional philosophies we're rejecting.
So we know what we don't believe in, but I'm not sure we know what we actually do believe in just yet. But we DO believe in star wars. It's nice in this post-christan idealogical hellscape to hear, just for a couple hours, that there are more important things binding us than fear and power. That it's important to know what you believe and fight for it. That redemption is possible, even for the worst of the worst. That community is possible, even if you get lost for a while. That we are connected more than we are separate. That it's not wrong to hope for a grander purpose to the universe that has yet to reveal itself. That your feelings are just as important as your reason. That your meditations are just as important as your action. That your humanity should not be crushed for the sake of expedience or fear or a really beautiful societal machine that craves your blood to grease its wheels.
I think we need a better post-christian framework than Star Wars. And that the longer we resist forming it consciously ourselves, the more space we leave for opportunistic demagogues to step in and carry us all off in the wrong direction. But while we're trying to untangle this mess we've made of things ideologically, Star Wars will have to do as the one thing we can agree on.
Speaking as a mildly bitter, very gay ex-christian who has lots of complaints with church culture these days, I think the anger partly comes from disappointment in Christianity's failure to defend some vitally important ideas that must stand in opposition to greed and power, because they're too focused on playing the persecution complex card over their right to discriminate against people they don't like for superficial reasons. Christianity has been a wildly transformative influence because it championed ideas that even today still feel like heresy: redemption, even for the worst of the worst, community for all, the transcendent power of relentless kindness and the pursuit of peace, even when violence and demonization are emotionally justified and cathartic. The more they drop the ball on a consistent pattern of behavior based on these core ideals (and probably a few I'm missing), the more people tend to dismiss them as more or less hypocritical and/or actively harmful to the communities they claim to love.
The thing is, and this has been my struggle since coming out of the closet and leaving my church structure, there has yet to be a transformative ideology that encompasses the strongest, most true and important aspects of christianity and then taken them a step further. And one thing I'm starting to realize is, even though we collectively eschew institutional ideological structure, I assume because we've been so damaged by the institutional failures of christianity and democracy, we cannot help but live by philosophies and ideologies. So if we're not choosing them consciously and carefully, ad-hoc structures will form to take their place, either based on our own unconscious needs, or as imposed by the opportunistic sith lords currently roaming the populace bellowing fear and promising security if we'll only give up a little more. For instance, we shouldn't bow to Mark Zuckerberg's idea that privacy is out-dated, simply because he has money and influence, and no compelling intellectual or philosophical credentials. But we DO, because we don't think enough about what ideas are important to us and whether they're worth defending. This is an assumption, but one borne out by how passively people agree to the constant creep of privacy violations by Facebook and Google and other interested parties. Put another way, if you're not living by your own principles then you're living by someone else's.
And it's not that atheism or some variation of atheism can't embody and champion all the ideals christianity is so happy to drop, or at least only offer to the comfortably similar, but so far, in my experience, it does the opposite. Not only does modern atheism seem to reject the church, but they seem disdainful of people that even ask the questions christianity tries to answer. Do you wonder if there's life after death? Well that's stupid, because there isn't. Do you even wish there was life after death? That's stupid, because you should be content with your total obliteration as a token of your commitment to realism. Do you wonder if there's a grander purpose to life on this planet than it appears? Well that's stupid because there's only the cold hard laws of the universe and so you have to make your own meaning, before your inevitable, meaningless annihilation, which you would embrace with no complicated emotions if you were as enlightened as THIS atheist. And so on. In too many situations, dogmatic and evangelical atheism offers little but nihilism in a fancy dress, which, I'm afraid offers little chance at a transformative cultural moment. Many of us step back from religion and say "well, I don't believe in invisible sky gods," but then have no compelling philosophical framework to latch onto that is well on it's way to subsuming and surpassing the institutional philosophies we're rejecting.
So we know what we don't believe in, but I'm not sure we know what we actually do believe in just yet. But we DO believe in star wars. It's nice in this post-christan idealogical hellscape to hear, just for a couple hours, that there are more important things binding us than fear and power. That it's important to know what you believe and fight for it. That redemption is possible, even for the worst of the worst. That community is possible, even if you get lost for a while. That we are connected more than we are separate. That it's not wrong to hope for a grander purpose to the universe that has yet to reveal itself. That your feelings are just as important as your reason. That your meditations are just as important as your action. That your humanity should not be crushed for the sake of expedience or fear or a really beautiful societal machine that craves your blood to grease its wheels.
I think we need a better post-christian framework than Star Wars. And that the longer we resist forming it consciously ourselves, the more space we leave for opportunistic demagogues to step in and carry us all off in the wrong direction. But while we're trying to untangle this mess we've made of things ideologically, Star Wars will have to do as the one thing we can agree on.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Sexistentialism
What do I cling to at my lowest anymore? Do I look up inspiration Carl Sagan quotes? Do I join a cult? Do I join a sex cult? A sex cult built around Carl Sagan quotes? Do I follow the Buddha? Do I find balance in the Tao? Do I run back into the crushing arms of Jesus? Do I flag down an alien spaceship and hope they've got more of it figured out than we do? Does anyone have it figured out or are we all just keeping busy? Is becoming a monk a good plan? Do they rent rockets to fly those seeking to eternal union with the Sun? How many roads must a man walk down? I wish I knew.
Not all who wander are lost. Not all who are lost wander. Sometimes they just sit there, not knowing where to go.
Not all who wander are lost. Not all who are lost wander. Sometimes they just sit there, not knowing where to go.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Born in a lost colony
Every now and then I tilt my head a little bit to the side and Christianity sounds like a science fiction story. A lost planet, originally under the rule of an alien empire with it's own laws, has gone it's own way, under the rule of a rebellious offshoot of the royal houses. An ambassador was sent to bring it back into the fold, a prince in fact, but was summarily murdered. One day, sooner or later, the emperor will arrive, crush the rebellion and reintroduce galactic law to this backwater planet. Christianity is the faction betting on the galactic emperor, and hoping adopting what it believes to be galactic law now will guarantee safe zones or evacuation when the emporer's battleships finally arrive in orbit.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Work harder, not smarter
Maybe the fucked-upedness of the world takes this shape:
Mind fuck #1: The already rolling in it assert you too can be rolling in it if you just worked very, very hard for a while, as they assure you're they're likely to have done. Or their parents. Or their underlings. The point is, someone worked very hard to get them where they are now, so if you want to share in the wonder of rolling in it, you'd better get to working hard.
Mind fuck #2: The typical american worker is generally NOT working hard, given the amount of time they spend on the internet when they should be working, and is too worried about being called out in their lack of productivity to put voice to the idea that plenty of people work hard and yet aren't rolling in it. Nor have they really tried working as hard as the rolling-in-its insist one should, to really confidently assert that the "work makes you rich" as a universal to truth to be empirically bullshit.
Mind fuck #3: Everyone actually working hard enough to please the ones who roll but who, inexplicably to one who rolls, still do not have the money to afford people to tend to life for them so they too can spend their days rolling in it, are just too damn tired to deal with the nonsense inherent in mind fucks #1 and #2.
Mind fuck #1: The already rolling in it assert you too can be rolling in it if you just worked very, very hard for a while, as they assure you're they're likely to have done. Or their parents. Or their underlings. The point is, someone worked very hard to get them where they are now, so if you want to share in the wonder of rolling in it, you'd better get to working hard.
Mind fuck #2: The typical american worker is generally NOT working hard, given the amount of time they spend on the internet when they should be working, and is too worried about being called out in their lack of productivity to put voice to the idea that plenty of people work hard and yet aren't rolling in it. Nor have they really tried working as hard as the rolling-in-its insist one should, to really confidently assert that the "work makes you rich" as a universal to truth to be empirically bullshit.
Mind fuck #3: Everyone actually working hard enough to please the ones who roll but who, inexplicably to one who rolls, still do not have the money to afford people to tend to life for them so they too can spend their days rolling in it, are just too damn tired to deal with the nonsense inherent in mind fucks #1 and #2.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Dark Continuums
Canadian TV has blessed me with two out-of-the-blue SF shows on Netflix recently. Continuum, which I believe just wrapped up a final half-season that I have yet to watch, has been a pretty decent ride. I keep thinking the tech kid is Frankie Muniz though for some reason. But it's had some good material. I recommend it, for the most part.
Dark Matter I'm still a little on the fence about. Among the highlights are the FTL drive effect (and name). If you're not shouting "launch all fighters!" in an SF show, I'll take "spin up the FTL!" Although they may have never actually shouted that. The android character is pretty interesting, although most plots involve her getting incapacitated because she's kinda the deus ex machina character and having her conscious trivializes most plots (which is a formula they may want to re-think for season 2). The CGI is spectacular for the most part, if infrequently used, presumably for budgetary reasons. And Stargate actors drop by once in a while!
The main downside is it has all the energy of a casual afternoon in the living room. I'm not sure what it is exactly but the tension is generally loose enough to play jump rope with and, especially in the first few chapters, boredom is a frequent problem, both ours and theirs. I don't know if it's that the hook really wasn't compelling enough to drive more than the first couple episodes or what, but the series drags frequently, until it gets to the episode with Stargate actors, and then it gets about 10 times better.
The last few episodes started to pull some kind of chemistry and momentum together, which it can hopefully roll into a solid second season, assuming it's getting one? I don't know, I'm not a professional TV commentator so I don't really bother to look this stuff up before I talk about it.
Also, has anyone else noticed how much more violent TV has gotten in the last 10 years or so? I'm not complaining exactly, I always though television norms were a teensy bit too puritanical and over-obsessed with the possibility of some child somewhere seeing a boob or hearing a swear, but my god do action shows seem to be splatter-fests now. Both in continuum and this people are getting shot in the head, sliced to pieces, burned to death, etc. I'm not sure what's driving it, but I find the change interesting.
Dark Matter I'm still a little on the fence about. Among the highlights are the FTL drive effect (and name). If you're not shouting "launch all fighters!" in an SF show, I'll take "spin up the FTL!" Although they may have never actually shouted that. The android character is pretty interesting, although most plots involve her getting incapacitated because she's kinda the deus ex machina character and having her conscious trivializes most plots (which is a formula they may want to re-think for season 2). The CGI is spectacular for the most part, if infrequently used, presumably for budgetary reasons. And Stargate actors drop by once in a while!
The main downside is it has all the energy of a casual afternoon in the living room. I'm not sure what it is exactly but the tension is generally loose enough to play jump rope with and, especially in the first few chapters, boredom is a frequent problem, both ours and theirs. I don't know if it's that the hook really wasn't compelling enough to drive more than the first couple episodes or what, but the series drags frequently, until it gets to the episode with Stargate actors, and then it gets about 10 times better.
The last few episodes started to pull some kind of chemistry and momentum together, which it can hopefully roll into a solid second season, assuming it's getting one? I don't know, I'm not a professional TV commentator so I don't really bother to look this stuff up before I talk about it.
Also, has anyone else noticed how much more violent TV has gotten in the last 10 years or so? I'm not complaining exactly, I always though television norms were a teensy bit too puritanical and over-obsessed with the possibility of some child somewhere seeing a boob or hearing a swear, but my god do action shows seem to be splatter-fests now. Both in continuum and this people are getting shot in the head, sliced to pieces, burned to death, etc. I'm not sure what's driving it, but I find the change interesting.
Hey, what's this?
Oh my god, I totally forgot I changed the design of my blog. Was it a good idea? Hell if I know. I just like to re-arrange things every now and then. But truthfully, this blog has never quite been what I wanted. I either need to design a better one or find a better platform.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
What I've learned about spacing between sentences
I have been getting the side-eye recently for using 2-spaces after the period that ends a sentence. An inference, a subtle hint, that the cool kids don't do it this way anymore. Here's the thing: if you want to get me to change my habits, you need to give me a good reason why, and "it's not currently fashionable" is typically not a good reason why for me.
After my typically ignorant and unsubtle inquiries on twitter, @mattthomas gave me a link to this Slate article (which I recommend you read), which lead me to this rebuttal (which I also suggest you read). The comments in the Slate article were also helpful.
So what's my conclusion so far? It's an aesthetic choice, a minor culture war blip amongst writing nerds, and it doesn't truly matter whether you use one or two spaces in your writing. To hear it told from the Slate article, there is a conclave of typesetters who have determined the purity of the single space and there are rogue english teachers leading people astray due to a love of former teachers and a too-great attachment to mid-centure typewriter aesthetics.
Given the rebuttal and some other facts, I'm not sure this is an accurate assessment. For one, I have not seen real compelling evidence that all typesetters believe in one space between sentences and for another there are plenty of style guides who ask for 2-spaces (the current APA style guides for instance) and others that don't have much to say on the matter. I am sure there are typesetters and publications that prefer 1-space, but I see little proof that this is an industry-wide standard and I've seen little documentation to back up the insistence on 1-space as anything more than a fashionable aesthetic choice. Even Manjoo admits that is exactly what it all boils down to, he's just arguing your aesthetic choice is bad because you aren't him and the typesetters he knows, whose opinion should be deferred to because of expertise. This is not the most compelling argument for an industry standard.
It may be possible that 1-space is more suitable for certain fonts and publications types and 2-spaces may be more appropriate for others. This might be an okay scenario that we can all live with in harmony.
My advice, based on the evidence so far, is if you're looking to publish for a certain community or publication, simply look up and follow the style guides they have provided (and if they haven't provided a style guide they have no right to complain about style). If it calls for one-space, use that. If it calls for 2, use that. CTRL-F (or command-F for you mac users) is your friend in either scenario. Beyond that? Use whichever spacing style seems most readable to you and doesn't get in the way of your writing flow.
If advocates for either style want to enshrine either practice as a universal standard, they're going to need to make better arguments to more people (especially people who write style guides) than they have so far.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Starting to Take Stock
Careening out of coming out of the closet and the concomitant mid-life crisis, I have yet to right myself entirely. There has been progress, to be sure, but I still operate far too much on a fuzzy-headed getting by in the day-to-day, rather than action with a clear purpose with even a short-term plan in mind. And frankly, I'm not quite where I want to be professionally and socially so simply getting by is increasingly intolerable.
So I'm entering the phase of feeling stuck in the mud when I'm sitting back, splashing a little, entering a sort of radical acceptance of the situation. "So, you're stuck. What's this like then?" I'm asking myself. I'm taking stock in other words.
"So this is the situation you've created for yourself, what would you like to do now?"
I'm not sure. I've been trying to organize myself with limited results, both professionally and personally. I increasingly despise living in digital environments for so much of my day (work and then home and then eventually in my sleep once we have the technology I guess). Plus, I just have a hard time of feeling attached and motivated by organizing file folders on a desktop or in an app? So I bought a bunch of paper notebooks because writing with a pen, even if it's just kind of simple statements about the structure I want the day to have, has been very helpful to me. Still, I haven't been able to devise a system on paper that feels sufficient to me. I have a "triage" journal where I go to write out what I need to do to salvage the day after generally procrastinating for the first half of it. I have a work "to-do" to help me get through the priority work tasks for the day. And I have a general journal for "I need some paper to write or draw some shit out so I can think about it more clearly."
For now these suffice, but ideally I'd have several notebooks organizing my work projects (because there are many happening simultaneously usually) and several organizing and detailing my writing projects, of which there are many ideas but few actualities. Why I can't make the leap from my current system to a more organized system I can almost visualize, I don't know.
I want to blame ADD, but I feel like anyone willing to confirm that diagnosis is just going to throw pills at me like I should fuck with my brain chemistry as an ongoing experiment with a shrug and a "yes, thank you doctor."
I am currently very stubborn about reasoning and feeling my way to the psycho-emotional knot that holds me captive and unraveling it. In other words I want to work through the source of my depression and dissociation and solve it rather than medicating the symptoms simply to function properly in capitalism. But sometimes, I feel like I'm just thinking myself in circles instead of accomplishing anything productive. Is this madness? Sometimes it feels like it.
To this end, group therapy has been an amazingly positive choice. I can't recommend it highly enough. But there is more to do, especially with regards to exercise and some sort of disciplined mental/spiritual practice, which is a subject for a future post.
I definitely look back at where I was in Reno and where I am now and see progress I am happy with. But a side-effect about allowing yourself to know who you really want to be, is noticing you aren't quite there yet.
Ask your doctor is knowing yourself is right for you.
So I'm entering the phase of feeling stuck in the mud when I'm sitting back, splashing a little, entering a sort of radical acceptance of the situation. "So, you're stuck. What's this like then?" I'm asking myself. I'm taking stock in other words.
"So this is the situation you've created for yourself, what would you like to do now?"
I'm not sure. I've been trying to organize myself with limited results, both professionally and personally. I increasingly despise living in digital environments for so much of my day (work and then home and then eventually in my sleep once we have the technology I guess). Plus, I just have a hard time of feeling attached and motivated by organizing file folders on a desktop or in an app? So I bought a bunch of paper notebooks because writing with a pen, even if it's just kind of simple statements about the structure I want the day to have, has been very helpful to me. Still, I haven't been able to devise a system on paper that feels sufficient to me. I have a "triage" journal where I go to write out what I need to do to salvage the day after generally procrastinating for the first half of it. I have a work "to-do" to help me get through the priority work tasks for the day. And I have a general journal for "I need some paper to write or draw some shit out so I can think about it more clearly."
For now these suffice, but ideally I'd have several notebooks organizing my work projects (because there are many happening simultaneously usually) and several organizing and detailing my writing projects, of which there are many ideas but few actualities. Why I can't make the leap from my current system to a more organized system I can almost visualize, I don't know.
I want to blame ADD, but I feel like anyone willing to confirm that diagnosis is just going to throw pills at me like I should fuck with my brain chemistry as an ongoing experiment with a shrug and a "yes, thank you doctor."
I am currently very stubborn about reasoning and feeling my way to the psycho-emotional knot that holds me captive and unraveling it. In other words I want to work through the source of my depression and dissociation and solve it rather than medicating the symptoms simply to function properly in capitalism. But sometimes, I feel like I'm just thinking myself in circles instead of accomplishing anything productive. Is this madness? Sometimes it feels like it.
To this end, group therapy has been an amazingly positive choice. I can't recommend it highly enough. But there is more to do, especially with regards to exercise and some sort of disciplined mental/spiritual practice, which is a subject for a future post.
I definitely look back at where I was in Reno and where I am now and see progress I am happy with. But a side-effect about allowing yourself to know who you really want to be, is noticing you aren't quite there yet.
Ask your doctor is knowing yourself is right for you.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Template Changes
So this dynamic view is interesting. I like the classic view a lot, but I'm not sure why it has a nav bar that's just looking at various modes of look at the same stuff? Timeline is kind of interesting, but the rest, meh. I might remove them manually. I think I'd rather the nav bar be links to different kinds of content than different ways of looking at the same stuff.
This is approaching the simplicity I want though. Feels less like a geocities webpage and a little cleaner and less cluttered. I like it so far, although I'm still planning to play around with wordpress and/or another blogging platform. Except Medium, because I'm not an earnest start-up entrepreneur in California.
This is approaching the simplicity I want though. Feels less like a geocities webpage and a little cleaner and less cluttered. I like it so far, although I'm still planning to play around with wordpress and/or another blogging platform. Except Medium, because I'm not an earnest start-up entrepreneur in California.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Unbearably Vinyl
I started collecting records this year, against my better judgement. Not wanting to be another unbearable hipster in Portland, I had avoided it for some time. Of course, hating hipsters can be its own version of unbearable, and I eventually realized obnoxiousness is generally an attitude thing. I can enjoy records, and as long as I don't get all pretentious about the sound or otherwise be a dick to people who don't give a shit about records, it would probably be okay. As it turns out, giving less of a shit what people think about my hobbies is generally a good life choice.
The hobby has been more fun that I really could have possible imagined. Not because the sound is just so superior, although I quite like it. Not because the album artwork is large and pleasing. Not because the entire process, from bin searches, to handling the record to using the turntable is so pleasingly tactile in an age of touch screens (which are tactile, but only ever in one limited fashion as you're always just touching glowing glass). Really, it's been fun just because I've discovered so much music I have never come across before.
Aside from a bunch of rock and roll favorites from the 70s and 80s, and re-buying Devin Townsend's stuff because I am a hopeless groupie as far as he is concerned, I've really been enjoying just browsing the large used record store distressingly near my apartment and finding gems from the past. Of particular note to me are Alan Parson's Project, Tomita, Electric Light Orchestra right now. Although they are far from my only new favorites. I'm listening to full albums from old favorites I've never heard before (David Bowie and Elton John), I'm listening to albums I never got around to buying on itunes (Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here) and I'm finally diving into classical music and getting to know Bach, Strauss, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Mozart in ways I never really bothered to before.
So is this a passing phase? I don't know, I heard someone say that people who did vinyl the first time around are skipping this phase the second. I think for me a key to longevity will be letting go of records that I didn't end up enjoying that much or when I've simply listened to it as much as I'm going to. In other words, I don't want this to be just another pile of crap I lug around so maybe only keep the keepers.
In short, I've found a bunch of new music to love, I've found depth in artists I already loved, I listen to more of my music more often and I'm enjoying music overall much more than I was a year ago. What's not to love about vinyl?
thoughts in flux
I keep thinking about what I want to do with this blog. Well, about all my online presences really. I think my tumblr blog will be exclusively devoted to curating "things that are emotionally important to me for some reason." So not a lot of original content there, but a way to get a sense of the stuff that resonates with me.
Twitter is where I'm most academic, although, notably, not about the things I'm professionally paid to be academic about. I tend to do most of my tech and anti-tech philosophy retweeting there. I try to stay away from the outrage of the day but occasionally get sucked in. More rarely over time I hope. I may conscious restrict the topics I talk about there in order to foster more conversational depth, but we'll see.
This blog, I don't know. I could try and build a following but a) I'm a little embarrassed by the apparent age of the blogspot format, and b) I'm not sure my thoughts, such as they are, are really ready for prime time. I do like some of the new blog formats and I do want to create a new blog I maintain. The only question here is am I going to just switch to a more modern, flexible platform, or am I going to try and make one myself, for myself? The latter is less dubious, given my history of focus and discipline, but it's my ideal. The kind of blog I want to make, both in appearance and functionality is probably one I'd have to make myself. The existing social media platforms all have their strengths, but none are quite what I really want, and some are outright obnoxious. I just want and online presence that's not bullshit.
All that said, the writing topics have continued to pile up, overflow and fall down the memory hole. There is lots I want to write about but haven't been writing about. There's really only a limited window to do so before the thoughts that want to be expressed are stale and no longer emotionally resonant. So that sucks. I may try and knock out a few simple ones tonight. I am in the middle of another "taking stock" phase, which is important and usually leads to a big post, but which is also my least interesting writing as it is largely glorified navel-gazing. Although I suppose that's true of most of the internet right now. I'm not sure the pizza rat topic from yesterday had much of deep importance about it but it still summoned a lot of words from people.
Beyond that, I'm not sure I ever want this blog to get "famous" unless I actually start producing some actually notable works of art or writing that would lead people to want to hear what I have to say. That seems like the proper route to me, in any case. And as always, I am all about proprietary.
In any case, dear reader who has no name, I hope you are well. And I sincerely hope to shape this blog, or something like it, into something worth reading in the near future.
Twitter is where I'm most academic, although, notably, not about the things I'm professionally paid to be academic about. I tend to do most of my tech and anti-tech philosophy retweeting there. I try to stay away from the outrage of the day but occasionally get sucked in. More rarely over time I hope. I may conscious restrict the topics I talk about there in order to foster more conversational depth, but we'll see.
This blog, I don't know. I could try and build a following but a) I'm a little embarrassed by the apparent age of the blogspot format, and b) I'm not sure my thoughts, such as they are, are really ready for prime time. I do like some of the new blog formats and I do want to create a new blog I maintain. The only question here is am I going to just switch to a more modern, flexible platform, or am I going to try and make one myself, for myself? The latter is less dubious, given my history of focus and discipline, but it's my ideal. The kind of blog I want to make, both in appearance and functionality is probably one I'd have to make myself. The existing social media platforms all have their strengths, but none are quite what I really want, and some are outright obnoxious. I just want and online presence that's not bullshit.
All that said, the writing topics have continued to pile up, overflow and fall down the memory hole. There is lots I want to write about but haven't been writing about. There's really only a limited window to do so before the thoughts that want to be expressed are stale and no longer emotionally resonant. So that sucks. I may try and knock out a few simple ones tonight. I am in the middle of another "taking stock" phase, which is important and usually leads to a big post, but which is also my least interesting writing as it is largely glorified navel-gazing. Although I suppose that's true of most of the internet right now. I'm not sure the pizza rat topic from yesterday had much of deep importance about it but it still summoned a lot of words from people.
Beyond that, I'm not sure I ever want this blog to get "famous" unless I actually start producing some actually notable works of art or writing that would lead people to want to hear what I have to say. That seems like the proper route to me, in any case. And as always, I am all about proprietary.
In any case, dear reader who has no name, I hope you are well. And I sincerely hope to shape this blog, or something like it, into something worth reading in the near future.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Building Momentum
Three new, if short, book reviews on CMS today. Which, by implication, means I've been developing a reading habit again! Yay, forward motion.
That's not funny
I remember being about 10-years-old and laughing my ass off at Bill Cosby. I had stumbled onto his bit about his kids thinking their names were "Damn It" and "Jesus Christ" because those were the two most common things he shouted at them.
"Damn it! Get in here!"
"But dad, my name's Jesus Christ!"
Which, for all of Cosby's sins, is still one of the funniest comedy routines I've every heard. Even at 10 I couldn't stop laughing. My mother, who came into the room just in time to hear the end of that, said only, "That's not funny, James."
And it wasn't, not to her. I doubt any modern lefty would care or agree, but Jesus Christ was a topic sacred to her and not only was it not funny, not only did she feel it was unfair mockery of her beliefs and lifestyle (what she might have called "punching down" today), but she didn't want to even hear the joke. I wasn't allowed to laugh at it, Cosby shouldn't have said it, she just wanted it to go away because she found it uncomfortable and hurtful.
This is the story that pops into my head every time I hear the endless "kids are too PC to get humor" thing that's still going around. It's a little different than what people are talking about. Cosby isn't intending to make fun of Christians, but himself, and while he is using my mom's sacred cow to do it, it's not with the intent to offend her, he just doesn't find taking the lord's name in vain to be much of a problem. There's definitely a difference between that and a humor intended to diminish, belittle and mock a given human stereotype or identity. So should Cosby not be allowed to make that joke because people like my mother think it's punching down at them? I think a large part of the problem is we're conflating too much in this conversation. Not all humor comes from the same place, with the same effect and for the same purpose.
So is making fun of Christians punching down, even if they have privilege? What is the clearly delineated hierarchy of suffering by which we can universally determine what humor is punching down and what is in good fun? Can we make fun of conservative christians with whatever unkind mockery we like because they have historically operated from a place of privilege? What if they report back that they don't feel that way, and that the humor feels unfair? Who gets to decide that? Can we unilaterally declare ourselves off limits to jokes because we have suffered? If so, how much suffering do we need to endure before we are safe from ridicule?
I think rather than focus on making sure no one is ever uncomfortable, which is both unworkable and unwise (sometimes people may need to point things out about us that are uncomfortable but important to hear), it's better to focus on intent. Some jokes are intended to be absurd, and maybe play too carelessly with people's sacred ideas. Some jokes are pointedly meant to shock and skewer sacred ideas because the teller feels it necessary. Some jokes are meant to simply uphold power and privilege and dehumanize the already demonized. Those scenarios all need to be handled differently. If an absurd joke would still be funny if they characters all had their identities switched around or changed for others, it's hard to get too worked up about it. Irreverent sacred cow skewering will always be controversial, but there's room for disagreement when it's institutions and ideologies being attacked instead of people. Humor meant to demonize and dehumanize can simply be met with a flat, "that's not funny."
The mistake generally seems to be declaring topics off-limits, regardless of intent. Or, from the other end, trying to pretend jokes that were clearly intended to dehumanize and demonize were "just a joke" i.e. absurdist. It's fair to point out the intent and quality of a joke can be critiqued. It's fair to point out you don't get to declare yourself off-limits from criticism or critique, whether it comes in the form of humor or not.
I look forward to dissecting humor until it stops moving with all of you in the coming months.
"Damn it! Get in here!"
"But dad, my name's Jesus Christ!"
Which, for all of Cosby's sins, is still one of the funniest comedy routines I've every heard. Even at 10 I couldn't stop laughing. My mother, who came into the room just in time to hear the end of that, said only, "That's not funny, James."
And it wasn't, not to her. I doubt any modern lefty would care or agree, but Jesus Christ was a topic sacred to her and not only was it not funny, not only did she feel it was unfair mockery of her beliefs and lifestyle (what she might have called "punching down" today), but she didn't want to even hear the joke. I wasn't allowed to laugh at it, Cosby shouldn't have said it, she just wanted it to go away because she found it uncomfortable and hurtful.
This is the story that pops into my head every time I hear the endless "kids are too PC to get humor" thing that's still going around. It's a little different than what people are talking about. Cosby isn't intending to make fun of Christians, but himself, and while he is using my mom's sacred cow to do it, it's not with the intent to offend her, he just doesn't find taking the lord's name in vain to be much of a problem. There's definitely a difference between that and a humor intended to diminish, belittle and mock a given human stereotype or identity. So should Cosby not be allowed to make that joke because people like my mother think it's punching down at them? I think a large part of the problem is we're conflating too much in this conversation. Not all humor comes from the same place, with the same effect and for the same purpose.
So is making fun of Christians punching down, even if they have privilege? What is the clearly delineated hierarchy of suffering by which we can universally determine what humor is punching down and what is in good fun? Can we make fun of conservative christians with whatever unkind mockery we like because they have historically operated from a place of privilege? What if they report back that they don't feel that way, and that the humor feels unfair? Who gets to decide that? Can we unilaterally declare ourselves off limits to jokes because we have suffered? If so, how much suffering do we need to endure before we are safe from ridicule?
I think rather than focus on making sure no one is ever uncomfortable, which is both unworkable and unwise (sometimes people may need to point things out about us that are uncomfortable but important to hear), it's better to focus on intent. Some jokes are intended to be absurd, and maybe play too carelessly with people's sacred ideas. Some jokes are pointedly meant to shock and skewer sacred ideas because the teller feels it necessary. Some jokes are meant to simply uphold power and privilege and dehumanize the already demonized. Those scenarios all need to be handled differently. If an absurd joke would still be funny if they characters all had their identities switched around or changed for others, it's hard to get too worked up about it. Irreverent sacred cow skewering will always be controversial, but there's room for disagreement when it's institutions and ideologies being attacked instead of people. Humor meant to demonize and dehumanize can simply be met with a flat, "that's not funny."
The mistake generally seems to be declaring topics off-limits, regardless of intent. Or, from the other end, trying to pretend jokes that were clearly intended to dehumanize and demonize were "just a joke" i.e. absurdist. It's fair to point out the intent and quality of a joke can be critiqued. It's fair to point out you don't get to declare yourself off-limits from criticism or critique, whether it comes in the form of humor or not.
I look forward to dissecting humor until it stops moving with all of you in the coming months.
Monday, August 10, 2015
College Humor and other oxy morons
I don't know why I'm bothering to wade in on the "college kids are too PC to understand humor anymore," pseudo-controlversy, but there are a couple things I want to parse.
First, the idea of humor as necessary counterweight to one's own pride and hubris seems to be a little bit dead on certain segments of the left. There is this sense, especially among lefty types who seem grimly determined to have a firmer grasp of "what's going on" than everyone else, that it is known who the villains are (them) and it is known what is punching up (punching away from them) and what is punching down (punching down towards them) and that comedy acts should then comfortably re-affirm what it is they already know to be true. The kind of people who love the Onion until it hits too close to home in other words. So I do agree that there is kind of a generally obnoxious sense that for the educated left, the court jester could not possibly point out something uncomfortable that they are already not keenly aware of and have formed all the opinions that everyone has all decided are correct. Leaving me to wonder if comedy on campus is supposed to be something not so much laughed at as nodded along with sagely.
Yes, those are the sins of corporations. Yes, those are the sins of patriarchs. Yes, those are the sins of the majority and a rigged system. Well done comedy man, you checked all the right boxes.
Which is all to say, of course some members of the left are sometimes over-the-top in their preening self-regard, lack of personal humility and generally annoying "know-it-all" self-righteous attitude. Hey, it happens to the best of us. The good news is it's a nice reminder how much we have in common with the right sometimes!
That said, some caveats.
One, I'm not sure how much of a plague this really is. While yes I think the left could use some kind of lessons in not repeating the sins attributed to conservatism without the slightest hint of self-awareness, this certainly isn't all leftists and may not even be enough people to warrant the press coverage. There are lots of very nice liberal types who are willing to entertain a comedian who doesn't 100% line up with their values. The left contains multitudes. My "sense of things" written out above is just that, "a sense of things" and should not be considered worth more than the paper it's printed on. But I certainly don't think it's a dire emergency, I just want some people to tone it down with the self-righteousness and the un-ending purity crusades from time to time.
Two, it's not really true that kids these days hate comedy. Louis C. K. is filthy and pushes all kinds of boundaries and college kids love him. True, he generally seems to punch in the direction they want to see comedians punching, but that doesn't make his work sometimes very challenging (see his most recent SNL monologue for some of that! Ooph, that was hard to sit through). But, "comedians" contains multitudes too. And it IS true that some comedians are hacks who rely on tired stereotypes that more and more people don't find too funny anymore. There is a growing sense of extreme exhaustion with the traditional lack of accountability for sexist, racist, and seemingly unaccountable patriarchs who all remain firmly at the helm of so much of our civilization and so comedy that just seems to reinforce the idea that "boys will be boys" (i.e. unaccountable to anyone else) is getting less and less play. And I can't say I blame anyone for being tired of a lot of those tropes.
I don't know if I have the wherewithal to parse this much further tonight, but there does seem to some mic grabbing going on, as who gets to define what is and isn't funny. And I get it, there is power in humor. There is power in who gets to decide who and what is worthy of ridicule and therefore who it is acceptable to treat poorly. Humor is a powerful tool in normalizing cultural stories about who the heroes and villains are in a given age. True power is exposed in who and what are considered beyond the pale to joke about. So while I understand the urge to keep comedians from punching towards oneself and one's allies who are perceived as vulnerable, and therefore to be protected, a movement that can't laugh at it's own foibles is in really dangerous territory.
Maybe we should focus less about laughing at other people, and focus more on laughing at ourselves.
First, the idea of humor as necessary counterweight to one's own pride and hubris seems to be a little bit dead on certain segments of the left. There is this sense, especially among lefty types who seem grimly determined to have a firmer grasp of "what's going on" than everyone else, that it is known who the villains are (them) and it is known what is punching up (punching away from them) and what is punching down (punching down towards them) and that comedy acts should then comfortably re-affirm what it is they already know to be true. The kind of people who love the Onion until it hits too close to home in other words. So I do agree that there is kind of a generally obnoxious sense that for the educated left, the court jester could not possibly point out something uncomfortable that they are already not keenly aware of and have formed all the opinions that everyone has all decided are correct. Leaving me to wonder if comedy on campus is supposed to be something not so much laughed at as nodded along with sagely.
Yes, those are the sins of corporations. Yes, those are the sins of patriarchs. Yes, those are the sins of the majority and a rigged system. Well done comedy man, you checked all the right boxes.
Which is all to say, of course some members of the left are sometimes over-the-top in their preening self-regard, lack of personal humility and generally annoying "know-it-all" self-righteous attitude. Hey, it happens to the best of us. The good news is it's a nice reminder how much we have in common with the right sometimes!
That said, some caveats.
One, I'm not sure how much of a plague this really is. While yes I think the left could use some kind of lessons in not repeating the sins attributed to conservatism without the slightest hint of self-awareness, this certainly isn't all leftists and may not even be enough people to warrant the press coverage. There are lots of very nice liberal types who are willing to entertain a comedian who doesn't 100% line up with their values. The left contains multitudes. My "sense of things" written out above is just that, "a sense of things" and should not be considered worth more than the paper it's printed on. But I certainly don't think it's a dire emergency, I just want some people to tone it down with the self-righteousness and the un-ending purity crusades from time to time.
Two, it's not really true that kids these days hate comedy. Louis C. K. is filthy and pushes all kinds of boundaries and college kids love him. True, he generally seems to punch in the direction they want to see comedians punching, but that doesn't make his work sometimes very challenging (see his most recent SNL monologue for some of that! Ooph, that was hard to sit through). But, "comedians" contains multitudes too. And it IS true that some comedians are hacks who rely on tired stereotypes that more and more people don't find too funny anymore. There is a growing sense of extreme exhaustion with the traditional lack of accountability for sexist, racist, and seemingly unaccountable patriarchs who all remain firmly at the helm of so much of our civilization and so comedy that just seems to reinforce the idea that "boys will be boys" (i.e. unaccountable to anyone else) is getting less and less play. And I can't say I blame anyone for being tired of a lot of those tropes.
I don't know if I have the wherewithal to parse this much further tonight, but there does seem to some mic grabbing going on, as who gets to define what is and isn't funny. And I get it, there is power in humor. There is power in who gets to decide who and what is worthy of ridicule and therefore who it is acceptable to treat poorly. Humor is a powerful tool in normalizing cultural stories about who the heroes and villains are in a given age. True power is exposed in who and what are considered beyond the pale to joke about. So while I understand the urge to keep comedians from punching towards oneself and one's allies who are perceived as vulnerable, and therefore to be protected, a movement that can't laugh at it's own foibles is in really dangerous territory.
Maybe we should focus less about laughing at other people, and focus more on laughing at ourselves.
Sunday, August 02, 2015
A Festivus for the rest of us!
My thoughts on Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists are here. Short version: I loved it. The questions he asks are important.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Do You Even Lift?
I’m kinda at this point where I need to embrace some body positivity about myself, but also kind of want to start exercising again because it helps me stay sane and evens out the peaks and valleys of my emotional roller-coaster.
And it’s weird to phrase it this way, but if I get fit, it won’t be so much a warm embrace of fitness culture so much as hate-fucking it with a “yuck” face. Which is a phrase or idea I’ve never liked, and I kind of hate to use it, but it’s the closest I can come to describing my sense of unease with the fitness industry. There’s just something cult-ish and unbearably smug about fitness culture as a whole.
For one, there’s kind of this constant mind fuck around attitude that I understand is just an attempt to push me past my bullshit and do the thing, but still, the kind of single-minded zealousness people work themselves into around the gym is very off-putting, especially if you grew up in fundamentalism and are now currently allergic to anything remotely resembling it. And I think there might be such a thing as fitness fundamentalists. I can barely go to yoga, even though I like the basic experience of it, because they so rarely seem to be able to leave well enough alone without bringing in some new agey bullshit around the whole endeavor, especially the yoga gurus, who conveniently have a book I can buy.
The other thing that bothers me about “the fit” is this bizarre protestant/capitalist work ethic angle where if you put in the time and the work into shaping your body into something generally regarded as pleasing by modern tastes, you shall be rewarded, and indeed perhaps owed, a relationship with someone possessing a body of equal or better well-shaped pleasingness. On some level, I understand, this is just how humans mate, typically by selecting someone a lot like them, but …. still. It just makes the whole thing seem so superficial and a little yucky.
If the over-whelming takeaway message was, “we want you to be healthy and live a long, happy life” I might be able to swallow it better. But, I don’t know, that’s just not the over-whelming message that seems to shine through the brightest.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Post-trip realization
I have no idea where i fit in the world anymore, nor the faintest idea what I'm doing.
I've basically found no place that makes sense to me since leaving my religion and I'm not going back. My religion was structured and purpose-filled but dystopian in its fundamentaist authoritarianism. The secular world is freer, but chaos, with an anti-pathy to purpose beyond capitalism and self-interest.
Who do you think you are to struggle with existential questions and doubt in any way other that alone, in quiet desperation?
So everyone scavenges for purpose and community as best they can.
I don't understand it. I don't understand my place in it. I don't like the sense of helplessness that inspires.
I don't like how much I don't try to change things.
I'd walk the earth, but I don't know Kung Fu.
So there's that awkward fact about me.
I've basically found no place that makes sense to me since leaving my religion and I'm not going back. My religion was structured and purpose-filled but dystopian in its fundamentaist authoritarianism. The secular world is freer, but chaos, with an anti-pathy to purpose beyond capitalism and self-interest.
Who do you think you are to struggle with existential questions and doubt in any way other that alone, in quiet desperation?
So everyone scavenges for purpose and community as best they can.
I don't understand it. I don't understand my place in it. I don't like the sense of helplessness that inspires.
I don't like how much I don't try to change things.
I'd walk the earth, but I don't know Kung Fu.
So there's that awkward fact about me.
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